"You have such lows"

Created: 11/02/2022, 10:00 am

By: Wolfgang Krzizok

Everything was fine: Geretsried's goalkeeper Johanna May was beaten, the gladiators (from left) Mark Waldhausen and Philipp Michl celebrate Roni Rukajärvi's 2-1 (not in the photo).

In the end, however, the guests won with 5:3 goals.

© Christian Riedel

The Erding Gladiators landed quite roughly on the ground of facts.

Erding – After the five-point weekend for the debut of the new coaching duo Schütz/Jirik, the Erdinger Eishackler put down a classic zero number with two 3:5 defeats in Schongau and against Geretsried.

"It was a terrible game from us, we won undeservedly," complained Schongau's coach Rainer Höfler in the press conference after the game.

"But that's the way it is: If you're at the top, then you win such games, if you're at the bottom, then you lose them."

His counterpart Felix Schütz only wanted to agree with him to a limited extent.

He saw the Schongauer as a strong team.

"In the final third we actually had the game in our hands," said the Erdinger team manager.

The Gladiators had taken a 3:2 lead, then Florian Zimmermann only hit the crossbar, in return the Mammuts equalized and finally the game tipped over.

Sunday's opponent Geretsried was a clear outsider on paper.

In addition, "we have a turbulent week behind us," reported ESC trainer Hans Tauber.

At the beginning of the week, coach Stefan Roth announced his resignation, after which it was initially said that ex-goalkeeper Kevin Olivo would take over the training.

"But it would only have worked for him for two or three weeks." So there were a lot of discussions, and finally Tauber, who is actually the U20 coach, took over.

On Friday he stood behind the gang for the first time at the Riverrats and heated up the top favorite Miesbach in the 3:5 defeat.

On Saturday Tauber looked after "his" U20s ("a solution will be found in the next few days"), on Sunday he was head coach at the Riverrats again - and was able to celebrate the victory in Erding.

"It was clear,

that the only way we can survive this weekend is by fighting," he said.

"We wanted to close the neutral zone, we did that well." His boys accepted the fight, "and that's how we earned the three points - and ultimately deserved them."

"A new coach always gives a push," said his counterpart Schütz.

“His team played very well in Schongau, except for the last ten minutes when they lost because of “one or two stupid mistakes”.

Actually, the team should build on the good performance against Geretsried.

Things went well in the first third, when his team led 2-1, and the third was evenly balanced.

In the second period, his team tried to put pressure on and he specified a certain tactic "so that the defenders also go along, but then they started to think".

Apparently, some players are "not so fit mentally" and you have to work on that.

"You have such lows," said Schütz, emphasizing: "I will never publicly criticize the team or individual players." It is important to him that it is always fun, "because they all go to work and are not professionals “.

He told the team that there was no training on Tuesday and that his boys should switch off a bit.

Schütz added with a laugh: "I only found out afterwards that the hall is closed on public holidays anyway and we couldn't have trained at all."